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You’re reading Dispatch Energy, a weekly newsletter on energy and climate policy featuring Alex Trembath, Philip Rossetti, Lynne Kiesling, Rory Johnston, and Roger Pielke Jr. To access more Dispatch reporting and analysis, become a member today.
Welcome to Dispatch Energy! Major energy and climate decisions of the past 15 years—what infrastructure to build, what risks financial regulators require banks to stress test against, how the projected costs associated with the emissions of a ton of carbon dioxide inform regulations—rested on a foundation that is now officially obsolete. Scenarios shape nearly everything in climate policy. But very few people outside a small technical community understand why they matter or who controls them.
A reference scenario—also known as a baseline or business as usual—is used to project where the world is headed unless we choose to change course. Other scenarios build off the baseline to illustrate how the world might look if decision-makers implement policies that alter that expected trajectory. The differences between the baseline and the policy scenarios are typically used to assess the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action.
